Cable Boxes Leave Viewers Crabby

A truck driver whose erratic schedule sometimes brings him home from work in the middle of the night, Grazer likes watching all those movies that come on the air at 2 or 3 in the morning.

And as a subscriber of Home Box Office (HBO), he especially likes to catch all those first-run movies in the comfort of his home at hours when commercial motion picture theaters have long since darkened their screens for the night.

But lately, Grazer's preferred method of relaxation has been thwarted by a succession of defective premium channel boxes supplied by Twin County Cable Television.

Grazer agrees that Twin County has been conscientious in replacing the boxes when they go bad. The cable company's repairmen have always installed the replacement equipment at no cost. And the company has given him credit on his monthly bill for the amount of time that his premium channel box was out of service.

But, says Grazer, it's the inconvenience of it all that bothers him. Since September, he's had to replace four boxes.

Only last weekend, Grazer called Twin County's office along Airport Road to report yet another broken box. Then, on Saturday morning, a repairman came to his home and installed a replacement. A few hours later, that unit broke also, and Grazer was left without premium channel service for the rest of the weekend.

Grazer is not alone. Numerous Twin County subscribers of the premium channel devices contacted by the Call-Chronicle reported similar experiences.

Joseph B. Riepensell of Allentown began subscribing to HBO and the Disney Channel around Thanksgiving, and since that time he's had to replace five or six boxes. A couple of his grown children, he says, have had similar problems at their homes.

"They came in and gave me a new one, but the boxes are no damn good," he says. "Evidently they're giving out a lot of junk."

Riepensell says he's thinking about dropping the extra service.

Suzanne Wedo of Lehigh Township went through nine of the boxes since September before she gave up and canceled the premium channel service altogether.

One of the repairmen who visited her house a few months ago, she says, told her that Twin County had received a bad batch of the boxes, but that a new shipment expected in January would be better. But when January came and she had a new box installed - a box that ultimately failed also - she discontinued the service.

One Bethlehem resident has used his own ingenuity to keep his box in working order. Now on his third box since last winter, he keeps the channel selector buttons depressed by using rubber bands.

Twin County refused to talk about the problem.

"If it is a problem, it is an in-house problem," says Don Berner, vice president of the cable company. "I'm not going to make any comment."

Only a few weeks ago, Twin County incurred the ire of some of its subscribers when it announced that it would drop New York's Channel 5 from its regular service and substitute MTV, the music channel, in its place.

When numerous Twin County customers protested the switch, the cable company reversed itself and restored Channel 5, moving MTV to Channel 31, a channel only available through one of the premium boxes.

Now, Grazer wonders how long it will be before his latest box goes on the blink.

"It's almost like one per month," he says. "It sounds like they're not giving complete service."